Concrete BBQ & Concrete Firepit

The summer’s waning, although there’s still plenty of warm, enjoyable weather in the month of September. It’s still nice in the evenings this time of year, and to spend time outdoors, cooking on the barbeque or relaxing with friends and family, before the oppressive cold of blasts of winter, can last well into October, if not even November.

So, to commemorate these last few months of enjoyable outdoor weather here in Montana, here are two project ideas—both are simple and fun—that will be able to be enjoyed immediately this late-summer and into fall, and will withstand the elements of winter to be ready next spring.

The Concrete BBQ

BBQ’s built from brick and concrete are amazing additions to any backyard space. Brick BBQ’s, otherwise known as Brick Ovens, are enjoyable to cook on, and because of the way in which food is cooked on one, the Brick Oven can be used for almost any scenario—it’s the best of both the outdoor BBQ Grill and the inside oven.

To build one, use bricks and a bag of Quikrete. The Quikrete will be used to build the footer for the oven, and also as the mortar between the bricks. Once the footer has been poured (You could use rebar or Quikrete’s blend of fiber-reinforced concrete to build the footing) plan the outline of the BBQ over the footer, and mark the dimensions of it onto the footer.

Dry-lay several courses of brick to ensure that your chosen design works on the footer, and, once you feel comfortable in the design, mortar your bricks into place.

Concrete can be hardened into any shape, if it’s dried in a precise mold. So, to build a concrete fireplace, you’ll need to build forms. The easiest shapes are rectangles or squares, because it’s easy to build forms that lay out at right angles, but experiment to see what works best for you. If you have never worked with concrete before, a backyard fire pit is definitely a first-timers type of project, as you will need to pour a footing, and set ups concrete forms, but the scale at which you will do it, and the amount of concrete needed to be mixed, is low-scale.